Buffalo Bisons - Video Production
Summer 2018
Over the summer of 2018, I was one of six interns for the Buffalo Bisons in the big board room which handles all video production. There is another review on this site done by Ciara who interned a year before me and it’s great, be sure to check it out, I will be giving my own personal experience with said internship.
There was a wide variety of tasks required to be done at the internship. There were basically six positions: Edit A, Edit B, Graphics, Graphics Assistant, Camera, and ENG. You usually get assigned to one position for every game but might have to do multiple if there aren’t enough interns for each position. The person on Edit A is responsible for running all the videos on the big screen out on the field. This includes all the commercials that come on pre-game and in between the innings. They are also required to upload all scoring plays, post-game interviews and various other game footage to the FileZilla and Bison’s website. The person on Edit B is responsible for creating the Celebrity look-alike segments that play near the end of the game.
The person on Graphics is responsible for all the graphics that appear on the game’s broadcast. Everything from pitcher stats to how many men are on base. The Graphics Assistant is to make sure all the graphics information is accurate and serve as a second set of eyes to catch any mistakes the person on Graphics might make with so much going on. The person on Camera is to film the game and listen to what the director tells them to do. Usually they are on the field, right next to the Bison’s dugout capturing and following the batter and pitcher. And the person on ENG goes out with a handheld camera and tripod and just gets cool footage of what’s happening in the ballpark during the game. You’re pretty much sent out on your own and have to go find some interesting stuff to film for use in game day videos like rally videos or bloopers.
This is a great internship for those who want to get into video production in the sports field. You work in a very hands-on real world environment where you actually do the things you'd be expected to do for a job. You don’t just watch people do stuff and get them coffee. It gives you a taste of the work environment in sports media production, which can be very fast paced and hectic. There is essentially a show going on and it’s your job to stay on your feet and make sure things are running smoothly and in a timely manner. You meet and get to network with people who also work for other local sports teams, like the Bills and Sabers, so it’s easy to make connections with people in the sports field. It is also great to get out of the classroom and actually do the things they tell you about in class, which was good for me as I learn better actually doing things rather than having them explained to me. Sometimes you’re thrown into the fire with little support as it’s a fast paced environment and there’s not always someone who can drop everything and come to your aid. So you’re forced to figure things out for yourself, which results in you getting your stuff down pat quickly and gets you real confident working with programs and equipment you’d use in the real world like how to operate cameras and do stuff on Adobe Premiere.
The people at the internship are all very nice, laid back and funny. As you are in the press box section of the ballpark you meet the freelance camera operators, people in promotions, and journalists so it's a good place to make connections if those are fields you’re interested in. Funny enough, you never really see any of the other interns who aren’t there for video production. They’re too busy being the mascots and running around on the field and whatnot. But it is easy to get to know and become friends with those in the press box, usually during the dinner break. Speaking of the dinner break, one cool thing to note is that before every game there is a catering service that fills up the break room with food, and there’s always a surprisingly healthy selection of stuff to eat. It isn’t just a small table with snacks, it’s actual food in chafing containers. So that was another positive for me at least.
One thing potential applicants should know is what a big time commitment the internship is. They expect you to be at every homestead game of the season, which is whenever they play on Coca-Cola field. You’re supposed to come in two hours before the game starts to help set up cameras and computers and the like. Then usually an hour before the game, there's a 30-minute dinner break in the press box, which you’ll be in. And then you obviously stay for the game which usually lasts around three hours and then stay for about another hour to take down cameras and upload post-game interviews. So it could easily add up to six hours a day, every day there’s a game, and some weeks there’s a game every day of the week. So it’s a whole lot of time spent on work for no pay, which sucks, especially when you’re working a full time job on top of that. But in my experience the people you work under are very accommodating for things like vacations or if you have to ask off for work or come in late or anything. And while there are a few rare occasions when you won’t be scheduled on any position for a game it is still highly encouraged that you show up. You want to leave a good impression and seem dependable after all. This is an aspect that I didn't like too much, having no position or a non-critical job like graphics assistant and still staying at the ballpark for six hours. It means that you’re basically just sitting there watching baseball, which is not something I’m into myself, but would be a dream come true for a baseball fan.
Overall I’m glad I did the internship because of the amount of stuff I learned. It made me much more confident in my abilities in the field of video production, so much so that when I came back to college I was able to take a much bigger role in clubs like the Ridge Report, an online newscast. The internship made me much more comfortable behind a camera and in my abilities to capture and edit video. It served as my crash course in Adobe Premiere, which is a program par for the course in the field of video production. The internship was also useful to me in understanding that I don’t particularly enjoy working in the sports industry, as I was never much of a sports guy, but I might have to at least start off in that industry because it is pretty big in places like Buffalo. If I wanted to pursue more television/film-related avenues it would be better for me to live in New York City of Los Angeles. But all in all I would highly recommend this internship for those who want to get into video production and have an interest in the sports field, just be prepared to commit a lot of time to it.